Turkey: what lies behind the nationwide protests?

The nationwide demonstrations were spontaneous, universal
and beyond distinct class characteristics. What we have witnessed can be
described as the self-protection of society against a particular form of “governance”
which neutered politics and silenced voices of dissent by appealing to the
requirements of economic success, says Ayse Bugra

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The cover story of the June 29th-July 5th issue of The
Economist magazine, entitled the “March of Protest”, featured four figures
representing the protests of 1848 in Europe, 1968 in America and Europe, 1989
in the Soviet Empire and 2013 'everywhere'. The protests that began in Istanbul
early this summer and spread throughout the country form part of a wave of
global anger which The Economistarticle
said “is sweeping the cities of the world”.
In Turkey, the protests were triggered by an urban development project
in downtown Istanbul which included the construction of a shopping mall and a
replica of the 18th century military barracks in the area where the
Gezi Park is situated. The occupation of the park by the demonstrators who
opposed the project was soon followed by a massive wave of protest throughout
the country. While each site of protest has its society -specific grievances
and its own idiom for expressing its demands, the case of Turkey, like all
others situated in the current historical conjuncture, can only be understood
by analysing specific local grievances against a common global backdrop.

Remembering Politics and Polanyi in 2013

One might have to go back to a phrase immortalized by
Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s, “There is No Alternative”, to understand the
global context of protest movements worldwide. This affirmation of the absence
of an alternative to the then emerging
neoliberal order meant, first and foremost, the end of politics as a
means of influencing and shaping the economy and society through deliberation.
The economy and society were to be managed according to the logic of market
relations and the commodification of life and livelihood had to be accepted as
an inevitable condition for economic progress. Economic insecurity and the
degradation of the cultural and natural environment could not be contested
through political means because the separation of the political and the
economic was seen as the central characteristic of a well-functioning market
economy. To the extent that politics had any place in this new global order, it
was in the realm of identity politics. Religious identity, in particular,
became an important element in a context where references to “post-secularism”
or the “return of public religion” proliferated. Religion appeared both as a
factor in political competition and as a source of national and international conflict.

It is against this historical background that large groups
of people throughout the world have come together to protest against widespread
unemployment and income inequality, the deterioration of social services, the
degradation of the environment, or rampant corruption. The interests protesters
represented were those of social groups who simply demanded that their voices be heard in political decision making
processes.

In many ways, these protests remind us of Karl
Polanyi’s analysis of the popular reaction against the 19th
century global market system whose tendencies toward the commodification of
life and livelihood had many parallels with those observed through our current
neoliberal globalization. The expression that Polanyi used in his analysis was
“the self-protection of society” which, as he put it, “possessed all the
unmistakable characteristics of a spontaneous reaction. At innumerable
disconnected points it set in without any traceable links between the interests
directly affected or any ideological conformity between them.”

In the specific case of Turkey, the nationwide
demonstrations exhibited these characteristics of the 19th century
resistance movements discussed by Polanyi. They were spontaneous, universal and
beyond distinct class characteristics in the way their demands were voiced.
What we have witnessed could, in fact, be described as the self-protection of
society against a particular form of “governance” which neutered politics and
silenced voices of dissent by appealing to the requirements of economic
success. In Turkey, this form of governance also included the imposition of a
centrally defined form of Islamic culture on society. Hence, the protests were
not only against the economic but also the cultural underpinnings of a policy
orientation which has become increasingly stifling and autocratic during the
ten year rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Protests in Turkey: antecedents and actors

No one could anticipate the timing and the scope of what is
now generally known as “Gezi protests”. Nevertheless, it should not be
overlooked that during the last decade public demonstrations have become
widespread in Turkey, and the authorities have used increasingly violent
measures to prevent and suppress them.

In 2008, for example, the labour union confederation DISK
decided to hold the May 1 demonstrations in Taksim square,
which has great symbolic significance for the Turkish labour movement, instead
of the government designated areas where the demonstrators would remain largely
invisible to the public. The government did not accede to their demand and the
pepper gas used by the police filled the air and affected the inhabitants in
several districts of Istanbul. On the day, I was a witness to the police
throwing pepper gas into the building itself where DISK has its headquarters
and later talked to people who had seen the emergency ward of a hospital, where
injured demonstrators were taken, also gassed by the police. In the following
years, there were more and more May Day demonstrators in downtown Istanbul despite
escalating police brutality. There were jokes about the Istanbulites’ addiction
to pepper gas, but some of the casualities were serious. On May 1, 2013 a 17 year old student was severely injured by a tear gas canister that hit
her in the head and she remained in a coma for several weeks.

May Day demonstrations were led by labour unions, but during
the last decade there were other protest movements throughout the country and
many of these were about environmental issues. A particularly strong campaign
was launched against the gold
mining venture in the western town of Bergama. The massive
resistance of the rural population of the region against this gold mining
operation, which used environmentally hazardous cyanide, was the most important
environmental social movement in Turkish history. Although the environmentalists were
supported by several court decisions, they were not able to stop the mining
operations.

There were
also massive protests launched against the recently mushrooming Hydroelectric
Power Plants which had environmentally disastrous effects, that were often repressed with immense
police violence. Apart from many injured protestors, one person lost his life
as a result of the brutal use of pepper gas.

Investments
in infrastructure formed an important part of the AKP’s economic development
strategy and these investment decisions were often undertaken without
considering their impact on the natural environment and cultural heritage. One
such dam
construction project which would lead to the inundation of the medieval
town of Hasankeyf in Eastern Turkey, led to a particularly strong public
reaction. Since this project was
financed by a foreign banking consortium, it had not gone through the usual
procedures governing public contracts. Eventually, public resistance caused the
foreign consortium to abandon the project and a group of Turkish banks stepped
in to finance it. One of the banks in question is owned by a media boss whose
prestigious TV channel has, during the last few years, become notorious
due to the number of journalists laid off for objective coverage of events distasteful to the government.

In Istanbul
itself, the sustained efforts of protesters could not prevent the demolition of
a patisserie and an old cinema, both important historical landmarks for the
inhabitants of the city. These symbols of urban public memory were demolished
to make way for new shopping centers to augment the already large number of the
recently constructed ones.

To
understand the AKP government’s gross insensitivity to demands for the
protection of the natural environment and cultural heritage, one needs to
consider the nature of the recent dynamics of economic development in Turkey.
Under AKP rule, although the average rate of economic growth has not been as
high as those observed in the emerging economies of countries such as China,
Brazil or India, it nevertheless achieved a respectable rate. However, this
went along with an increasing
current account deficit, much larger than in the overwhelming majority of
developed and developing economies. Hence, the economy became heavily dependent
on the inflow of foreign capital. Capital flow, in its turn, depended on
positive expectations about economic growth, which were largely led by
infrastructure development and the vitality of the construction sector where a
huge public agency (TOKI) has come to dominate the use of real estate and
financial credit. This meant that environmental concerns had to be subordinated
to the requirements of economic profit.

While the
AKP government has followed a market-oriented economic strategy, the presence
of the government in economic life has remained very significant. Businessmen
with good relations with the government could, as in the past, benefit from opportunities
for politically supported capital accumulation created by the exceptions
introduced or the changes made in the legal framework of the existing
regulatory system. Under successive AKP governments, Public Procurement Law, which
constitutes the centerpiece of the legislative framework of government-business
relations, was changed 24 times, with over 100 amendments made in its scope and
applications as well as in the clauses determining the exceptions. The current
application of the Public Procurement Law, especially the use of the clauses
concerning exceptions, was criticized
in the European Commission’s progress reports on Turkey, albeit with little
impact on the prevailing forms of economic intervention and the nature of
government-business relations.

These
relations are currently unfolding in a deeply polarized environment where
political positions taken by business actors can have serious and adverse
effects on their prospects for business development. In this regard, the
spectacular tax penalty imposed on Aydın Doğan, a media mogul with diversified
business interests in other sectors, constitutes a striking example. The
remarkable tax penalty of $ 3.8 billion received by Doğan was the result of his
media group’s openly critical stand against political Islam in general and the
AKP government in particular. Eventually, Doğan had to sell a large number of
his newspapers and television channels and significantly downsize his media
empire. This incident had wide press
coverage both in the country and abroad.

To varying
degrees, nearly all Turkish governments considered the media as a tool for
building and maintaining hegemony. Media acquisitions by business people
introduced another dimension to this already problematic relationship as they
rendered the media more vulnerable to political manipulation given the
government’s power to influence profit opportunities in other sectors where the
media investors had economic interests. Although the process had already begun,
under AKP rule it has taken a more decisive turn as several newly emerging
entrepreneurs, close to the government, acquired media outlets. The media
sector has thus become an arena where economic and political interests are
jointly pursued. This has significantly contributed to the present state of
affairs where journalists are effectively “tamed” by direct
editorial intervention, fear of dismissal or even imprisonment. In fact, along with the outrage caused by
police brutality, the demise of objective reporting and critical journalism was
one of the factors which kindled public anger and led to the nationwide spread
of Gezi protests. Many were shocked to see how the mainstream media
initially tried to avoid covering the events. “The revolution will not be
broadcast on TV” was one of the many clever slogans used by the demonstrators.

The recent wave of protests has revealed both the extent to
which the media has been silenced by the government, and how available communication
technologies undermine the ability of repressive governments to control the
flow of information and limit the freedom of expression. Coming together in a demonstration
and acting in solidarity in a movement of resistance becomes relatively easy
for people who are used to virtual friendships formed on the internet.

Young people who grew up in the information age constituted
the majority of the Turkish demonstrators, but the student activists of the
1960s were also out there. There was a point at which the threshold of fear was
overcome; parents stopped worrying about their children and went out to face
pepper gas and water cannons with them.
Unionized workers demonstrated with the self-employed, informal sector
employees with medical doctors, architects and lawyers. The oldest and the most
important business group of the country, Koç, opened the doors of its luxurious
downtown hotel to protestors who turned it into a shelter from police violence
and an emergency ward for the injured. The largest industrial enterprise of the
country, an oil refinery affiliated with the Koç Group, recently faced what was
presented as a tax
inspection as well as a search for smuggled oil carried out by a large
group of inspectors accompanied with about 20 policemen.

What brought the demonstrators from different walks of life
together was their reaction to an economic strategy where growth led to
environmental degradation, to a limited understanding of politics identifying democracy solely with the ballot
box whilst remaining oblivious to people’s concerns and demands, to the
polarizing discourse of political authorities and to the way economic and
political interests have become intertwined within the networks formed around the
ruling party. People were also united
by the resentments caused by the politically engineered rise of religious
conservatism that marginalized those whose lifestyles were not deemed to be in
conformity with the government authorities’ understanding of the principles of
Sunni Islam. Women who were conspicuous among the protestors particularly resented
the Prime Minister’s statements condemning abortion as murder, suggesting that
all Turkish families should have at least three children and affirming that
caesareans are to be avoided. Many of the female protestors, as well as the
LGBT groups who were also visible among the demonstrators, were aware of and
uncomfortable with the strong familiarism and the affirmation of traditional
gender roles that informed social policy processes. A recent piece of
legislation seriously restricting the sale and the use of alcohol, which was
approved by the president while the protests continued, served to confirm and
enhance the concerns about government interference in personal life. The
slogans written on the walls included one which said “You shouldn’t have
prohibited that last beer”.

Hopes and doubts about the future

During the past decade, domestic and foreign coverage of
Turkish affairs has been dominated by praise for the successful economic performance
and the admirable progress toward democratization realized by the “moderately
Islamic” AKP government. Critical voices and expressions of discontent were
easily silenced by marginalizing
opponents and labelling them as “authoritarian nationalists”, “Kemalist
militarists”, or “members of a small secularist elite worried about losing
their privileged position in society.” The rosy picture of Turkey under AKP,
which was actively promoted by a highly effective ideological offensive carried
out by the intellectuals who supported the ruling party, had already begun to
appear less convincing before the recent wave of protests; it has become
impossible to sustain after the protests revealed the scope and the diversity
of the opposition as well as the depth of the resentments caused by the
particular mix of economic liberalism and cultural conservatism forced upon the
country. Nevertheless, the idea that there is no political alternative to AKP
rule still prevails in some accounts of the recent events.

Is there a political alternative? Or, as A. Touraine asked
at the beginning of his book Beyond Neoliberalism: Is our society still capable of
using its ideas, hopes and conflicts to act upon itself?” In the short run, the answer to Touraine’s
question will depend on the ability of the spontaneous wave of resistance to
organize itself in ways which could influence party politics and the results of
democratically held elections. There are several reasons to think that the hope
for a democratic change of government might not be too fragile. First, the fact
that for the first time in the country’s Republican history the military is not
an important actor in political developments opens a window of opportunity.
Second, it should not be forgotten that in spite of the ravages of the military
intervention of 1980 which still linger, Turkey remains an organized society.
While the protests were clearly spontaneous and unplanned, they have taken
place with the active participation of not only a myriad of NGOs but also of
labour unions and professional associations which represent thousands of
architects, engineers, medical doctors and lawyers. CHP (Republican People’s
Party),the main opposition party which had 33.6 per cent of the popular vote
against the AKP’s 40.2 per cent in the last elections for Istanbul metropolitan
assembly, has intelligently maintained a respectful distance from the protest
movement and did not try to politically manipulate it. But some of its MPs took
part in the events and they were gassed and harassed with the demonstrators.
While the CHP could not stop the police brutality, it could at least carry the
issue into parliamentary debate and was often supported by the two other
parties of the opposition.

The BDP (Peace and Democracy Party), which is affiliated
with the Kurdish movement, was initially lukewarm about the protests which overshadowed the on-going
“Kurdish opening” of the government. Eventually, however, the leaders of the
party made statements
to the effect that democracy in Turkey is a necessary precondition for a peaceful
solution to the Kurdish problem.

At the same time, the demonstrators, among whom there were
many people not at all sympathetic to the Kurdish demands for regional
autonomy, refrained from using any nationalist slogans. Equally careful were
the ardent secularists who actually seemed to appreciate the presence of
“anti-capitalist Muslims” in the protests and eventually joined them in a huge
Ramadan feast which turned into a heart-warming
potlatch bringing people together against the polarizing discourse of the
government authorities who have continued to demonize the protestors with
reference to their alleged disrespect for religion and their immoral and
immodest behaviour. These signs of the possibility of peaceful coexistence
constitute another important reason to be hopeful about the possibility of a
democratic future.

It would nevertheless be dangerous to be over optimistic
about the pluralist atmosphere of the protest movement which can easily
change under the influence of attempts to manipulate nationalist sentiments and
religious sensibilities or the campaigns against the CHP (which the supporters
of the AKP still try to discredit with reference to its single party rule in
the pre-Second World War decades of early Republican history). There is
also reason to expect an escalation of police violence, arbitrary arrests and
court sentences against the demonstrators and the people who have supported
them in different ways. Several recent developments, such as the above-mentioned visit of inspectors to the Koç-affiliated industrial enterprise or
new legislation affecting both the sources of revenue and the prerogatives of
the Chamber of Architects, a body active in opposing arbitrary urban planning
decisions, indicate the determination of the government to repress dissent and
opposition by using different methods of intimidation and disempowerment.
There are in fact, quite disturbing signs that this determination is being
rationalized and justified by de-legitimizing the democratic opposition to the
government. Recurrent parallels made by the Prime Minister between the military-led ouster of the Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi and the current opposition
against his government, for example, indicate that he might be refusing to make
any distinction between military interventions and popular expressions of
discontent which might lead to a search for political alternatives in
conformity with democratic practice.

Perhaps
more alarming is the Prime Minister’s polarizing discourse which inflames
rather than dispels the tension in the air. The police were congratulated and
rewarded after weeks of violence against an unarmed crowd leading to five
deaths, 12 losing an eye and hundreds sustaining diverse injuries. People were
told to inform the police against their neighbours who disturb public peace by banging
pots and pans to express their solidarity with the protestors, and the supporters of the AKP were provoked
against the demonstrators in different ways.
While many shopkeepers around Taksim seemed to be sympathetic to the
protests, at some point one individual actually attacked a crowd of
demonstrators with a huge knife. He was taken into custody and a case was
opened against him, but he was released on the grounds that he was not likely
to escape. The following day it was reported that he had flown to Morocco. In a
country where there are thousands of people - including many journalists, a few
prominent scientists, and some elected members of the parliament - who are
languishing in prison while their trials have, in some cases, been continuing
for years, the leniency with which this aggressor armed with a lethal weapon
was treated seems remarkable.

The fact that they were so far limited to non-violent acts
of civil disobedience constitutes a highly encouraging aspect of the protests
in Turkey. Avoiding the outbreak of violence is, indeed, of crucial
significance for the expressions of discontent to translate into a healthy
process of political participation and contribute to the democratization of the
country. But the future of Turkish democracy also depends on the kinds of
lessons the ruling regime draws from the recent events. Unfortunately, the
reactions of the government to these events have so far been far from
encouraging.

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